Mary Pickford was often called "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary," and "The girl with the curls." She was a real beauty!

Mary Pickford was born in Toronto, Canada and named Gladys Louise Smith. Gladys Smith assumed the stage name Mary Pickford while playing a supporting role in the 1907 Broadway play "The Warrens of Virginia." The play was written by William C. DeMille, and his brother, the soon-to-be-very-well-known Cecil B. DeMille, was also in the cast.

In those early days of film, pictures were made quickly. Pickford signed with the Biograph Company and turned out 51 pictures in 1909 � that is, nearly one a week. She played both in starring roles and in supporting roles, and she played women from every walk of life and many different nationalities.

Biograph moved to Los Angeles in 1910, and Pickford moved with them. In 1912 she decided to accept an offer to return to Broadway, but she stayed only a year. Her heart belonged to the fledgling motion picture industry.

In her book, "The Woman Who Made Hollywood," Eileen Whitfield said about Mary Pickford, "the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman who was known to more people and loved by more people than any other woman that has been in all history." That pretty much sums up Mary Pickford.

She was a pioneer in the world of film � an original, a one of a kind. She shocked her adoring fans when she divorced her husband and immediately married Douglas Fairbanks in 1920, but her fans forgave her.

Mary Pickford, along with Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith, founded United Artists in 1919. Mary and Douglas produced and shot their films after 1920 at the Pickford-Fairbanks studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. Pickford quickly became the single most powerful woman who has ever worked in the motion picture industry.

Popularity: unranked [?]

No related posts.

Tags: , , , , ,